This is one of the questions we were given in class for homework. Maybe I shouldn’t be doing my homework on my blog but it is relevant. I’m not sure how long it’s meant to be but I promise I’ll try to keep it concise.

My reading tastes have changed over the years. For a long time I only wanted to read science fiction and then that changed to fantasy and later on I decided I was going to read every book in the library starting in the top left hand corner of that shelf (points to shelf I can see in my head), I think I stalled at the first book ‘cos it was totally boring. Nowadays I like to read almost anything.

I stall at romance or erotica. I might like the author, I did manage to make it all the way through Poison Kissed by Erica Hayes and the only reason I finished it was because she’s a good author. Should she venture into any other genre I’ll have her books in my To Be Read pile in an instant.

While I do like to read a lot of fantasy there are limits and I found those limits recently with a book I just couldn’t finish. The author has talent but has not been edited properly and I found it extremely hard to read. I might try reading him again when he’s older and has more skill with writing. I was talking about it in general terms with a friend and was told the author might be good at writing scripts as some of the things I was complaining about would make him an excellent scriptwriter.

Anyway, I love to read fantasy, getting into other worlds with other creatures and possibilities of different things happening is just awesome. One of my favourite fantasy writers is Terry Pratchett, he’ll be here in April for the third Australian Discworld Convention. Ursula K Le Guin is also a favourite, her worlds and people are so nicely drawn.

I am also fond of detective novels.  The most famous of them is Agatha Christie, I’ve managed to collect almost all of the books she wrote under her own name but haven’t bothered with those written under a pseudonym as they’re romance.  I recently discovered a great Australian author named Steve J. Spears who set his writings in Adelaide, it’s a pity he died young.

A Melbourne author I’ve taken a liking to is Shane Maloney who writes political thrillers.  I’ve read many Robert Ludlum and Alistair Maclean books.  For my sins I struggled through The Da Vinci Code but I didn’t like it.

I have picked up a number of biographical works recently and most of them are a delight to read.

My apologies for sharing my homework with you, I promise I won’t do it every week.